Part of my high school days were spent marching. That's right, marching. From my sophomore to my senior years I was a member of the banner corp. Those are those girls that march in front of the band carrying the school name on a sign or flag. During the sophomore year our band one first place in the state competition. It was fantastic! The 2 years after that the band went downhill, but it was still fun to be a part of it.

We practiced after school, in the senior parking lot. We would march back and forth, back and forth, making sure we had straight lines at all times. The banner corp consisted of 10 girls, each carrying a letter with a girl extra on each end. Sometimes the weather was extremely hot, but we marched on.

We practiced for the shows at half-time at the football games, we practiced for a number of statewide marching competitions. We would leave early in the morning to board a school bus and drive to where ever the competition took place, including as far as Long Beach, California. It was always lots of fun!

Of course we also marched in local parades, especially the yearly Mother Goose parade at Thanksgiving.

That's us, ready to step off!

I still have that uniform plus the sequined apron and headband. We had to sew the sequins on ourselves! Our shoes were white moccasins and our feet felt every stone in the street. For colder days we had a matching jacket and our school sweater.

and one year (1967 ?) the Mother Goose Parade got rained on and we didn't march, but that didn't stop us! This picture is scanned from a "Daily California" newspaper article.